I want to share Rick Renner's "Sparkling Gems From The Greek - Volume 2" today!
SUPERNATURAL ASSISTANCE
Are they [angels] not all ministering spirits, sent forth to
minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation? — Hebrews 1:14
Today I want to talk to you about the ministry of angels,
and how they work to protect and deliver us in times of trouble. Let me begin
by retelling a part of a story that I related to you in the May 29 Gem,
and I want add a story at the end to demonstrate the point even stronger.
I had long wanted to visit the city of Vorkuta, located
above the Arctic Circle in Russia. It was one of the major cities where Joseph
Stalin deported believers during a raging period of persecution. There
Christians were incarcerated in huge prison camps and forced to work deep under
the earth in dangerous coal mines, where they dug the coal that fired the
massive coal-burning factories and trains of the Soviet Union.
I sensed that it was a divine assignment to visit Vorkuta at
that time. Because of its notorious place in history for Christian believers, I
wanted to talk to the TV director that covered that large area in order to
obtain a contract for broadcasting our TV program. I also intended to find out
how many believers still lived there and what we could do to be of assistance
to them.
As I related in the earlier Gem, my seat on the
airplane was at the front of the plane near the flight attendant station, and I
was seated next to a window, which made it possible for me to see everything
happening outside of the airplane. My particular seat faced the tail of the
plane, so I could also see everything that was happening inside the aircraft.
First, all the passengers boarded. Then I watched out my
window as cargo handlers began to load cargo into the underside of the plane. I
was shocked at the amount of boxes, suitcases, and cargo they were putting into
the cargo hold. In fact, it was so overfilled that when it came time to shut
the doors to the cargo hold, it took several men to shut it, because the
overflowing cargo was pressing against the door.
Meanwhile, inside the plane from where I was seated, I
watched as airport workers piled boxes, boxes, and more boxes in the
tail of the plane, until the rear end of the plane — that is, the kitchen and
the toilets — were no longer visible or accessible. After that, they began piling
luggage and boxes into empty seats, and then they started stacking them from
the back to the front of the center aisle of the plane. The extra cargo filled
the cabin all the way from the very back to where I sat in the front of the
plane!
Because I was seated close to the flight attendants, I could
hear their conversations. I overheard one flight attendant say to another, “I’m
getting off this plane, because it’s so severely overloaded that I’m afraid
this plane is not going to make it.”
Yet I knew I was supposed to go to Vorkuta. So
what should I do? I thought. I bowed my head with those who were traveling
with me, and we prayed, “Lord, if this plane is going to crash, please do
anything needed to get us off this plane!”
Just as we finished praying, a flight attendant frantically
yelled, “Everyone — as quickly as possible — get off this plane! We just
received a phone call that there’s a bomb on this plane!”
People started fighting with each other and shoving their
way to the airplane door. At last when everyone was off the plane, and we were
inside the terminal, a public announcement was made, which declared that the
entire plane was being unloaded so the authorities could search for a bomb.
After hours of our waiting and wondering what to do next, another public
announcement was made over the intercom, saying, “After searching the aircraft,
we found no bomb on the plane. It was a false threat. However, we have decided
that when we all reboard the aircraft, no extra luggage or boxes will
be permitted. Only the suitcases of passengers will be permitted on this
airplane.”
My companions and I stepped into the plane and reseated
ourselves in the same seats that had been assigned to us. People looked
relieved, peaceful, and thankful that the plane was no longer overloaded. I
heard the same flight attendant who had earlier threatened to get off the plane
tell his colleague, “Now we’ll have a safe flight.”
This brings me to what I want to share today about the
delivering and protective ministry of angels — because I asked myself that
day, Who was that mysterious phone caller who said there was a bomb on the
airplane? Who caused the airplane to be so quickly emptied, leading to the
fortuitous decision to remove all that dangerous extra cargo? I wondered, Is
it possible that an angel was the unidentified mystery caller?
Hebrews 1:14 declares, “Are they [angels] not all
ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of
salvation?” According to this verse, angels are “sent forth to minister” on behalf
of those who belong to the family of God.
The word “minister” is the Greek word diakonia, a word
that depicts high-level service. It is important to note that rabbis in
New Testament times used a very similar phrase to describe what they called
“angels of service or ministry” — angels whom they believed were assigned to
protect individuals and deliver them from harm.
Let us be confident that part of the angelic ministry is to
ensure a believer’s safety from dangerous and harmful things. Certainly that
day at the airport, something inexplicable happened that saved the lives of my
team and everyone else who was on that airplane. There were five believers on
my team. I would not be surprised if that event was some type of angelic
intervention to spare our lives from tragedy. In fact, I truly believe
this is what happened.
Especially during the time period when Hebrews 1:14 was
written, believers were often forced to physically move from one place to
another and were regularly caught in difficult circumstances. But “ministering
spirits” — that is, angels — were sent forth to “minister” to them. These
angels provided the highest level of service available to help these believers
and protect them from harm as they were en route from one place to another.
The phrase “sent forth” in Hebrews 1:14 is a translation of
the Greek word apostello, which describes one who is dispatched on a
mission. Therefore, these angels spoken of in this verse are purposefully
dispatched on a mission to serve and protect the heirs of salvation. It was,
and it remains, the mission of angels to serve the needs of the saints and to
provide them protection.
Even as you read this, perhaps you can think of people who
were in the direct path of harm until something happened to divert their course,
and it was that change of direction that spared them from a catastrophic event.
I am reminded of a time when our eldest son Paul had a car accident in Moscow.
He hit a pole, and it turned the car over multiple times, totally crushing the
vehicle. Yet all three people in that car walked away unharmed! The street-side
pole was destroyed; the car was completely crushed. But the three people
traveling in the car were unscathed. It was truly miraculous.
When Denise and I saw the car, we cried, because we realized
there was no human way that death could have been avoided. It was clear to us
that our son and his companions had been protected by angels who were assigned
to protect them and save them from harm.
So today I want to encourage you to know that there are
angels on assignment, sent to minister to you and to protect you in times of
danger. To qualify for this angelic protection, Hebrews 1:14 states that one
must be an “heir of salvation” — or one must be a child of God. So if you have
made Jesus the Lord of your life, you qualify — and it’s time for you to
recognize that angels have been assigned to you and to call upon them as you
travel and traverse the twists and turns of your life.
Now every time I enter a plane, I lay my hands on its
exterior and thank God for the angels who are traveling with me and who are
assigned to keep me and all those traveling with me from harm. Knowing that God
has provided such protection has kept me in peace on many occasions when I
could have been inwardly disturbed in difficult situations. I keep in mind that
Psalm 34:7 declares, “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that
fear him, and delivereth them.”
This is a good day to take a few minutes to reflect on the
times when your life has been spared by the divine intervention of God and His
angelic hosts. Or perhaps you can think back to times when the lives of people
near and dear to you were divinely protected. If they are heirs of salvation and
the way they were spared was absolutely miraculous, you can know that they
lived to tell the story because of angelic intervention. Angels were sent on
assignment to travel with them and to protect them.
Although we certainly don’t worship angels, I think it’s
right for us to thank God for providing this high-level service to
keep us and protect us from harm!
I am certain that we have all been the recipients of angelic intervention at some point and I am looking forward to watching the replay of that at some point in Heaven! More inportantly, as WE pray, I fully expect that we can count on angelic intervention in the future! MERRY CHRISTMAS to you all! We love you and your beautiful family so much! Here is Hillsong with "We Have A Saviour":
Love and Shalom from the Swoveys!
